Sustainability generally relates to an ability to maintain a desired balance between utilization of resources vis-à-vis the availability or the projected availability of resources. As it relates to the global environment or certain ecosystems therein, modern production and manufacturing industries are increasingly examining the effects of their production on the environment. Each step of a supply chain for manufacturing a good involves material that must be acquired, typically through extraction, refining, or reconstitution. Virtually all steps in the supply chain result in some type of ecological or sustainability impact, whether from the extraction of the materials themselves, or energy consumption, water and other resource utilization, emissions or waste and so forth.
Though a great deal of attention has been paid to the value of sustainability concerns—including stewardship of the environment, energy, or safety factors—often the factors that impact sustainability have been viewed as external to the products. Rather, previous notions of sustainability focus exclusively upon the actual manufacturing of the product or components thereof, including packaging, while ignoring entirely the effects those products have once they enter the stream of commerce.